The Fighter - Day 14
Lita and Cutter buzzed across the white expanse of nothing. Moving at speed like this, you could realize that the expanse was not quite as vacant as it seemed. There were more islands of features than one might expect from the barrens north of Medley. Dots of land and formations dotted the horizon as they sped past. They were still sparse, miles apart, and many miles could still be consumed while seeing nothing. At other times, five or six islands of land might be visible at a single moment.
Cutter had grown used to them, their weirdness, different sizes, different topographies. Some were slabs of rock that just seemed to sit on the white, like a forgotten toy. Others were sprawling, multi-acre expanses of jungle. Some were inhabited, some were not. He had done a few jobs for Spinner since his arrival in Medley. He had set foot on more than one of these strange little configurations of earth and stone and plant.
The island they were approaching was a substantial one. It was barren-looking from a distance. Its colors, when it was little more than a dot on the horizon, were browns and greys, dirt and stone. It rose in the middle, a crude conical protrusion soaring from the centre of the sprawl, like a volcano or a mountain.
The challenge in Scape was approaching unseen. It was essentially impossible without advanced and specialized sigils. Cutter had not dealt with a quarry more intelligent than a kobold to this point, so the question had happily gone unanswered. This time though, he was hunting beings as smart, or seemingly as smart, as he was. He had hypothesized that rushing a landform quickly, with the speed that Lita could provide, would afford the chance to take an enemy unawares. Lita’s motion produced a low warbling hum at speed. If there were vigilant sentries, it would never work.
As they grew closer to the island, he could see that the lower regions were furred with dry and dead vegetation.
“Shit, Leets. This place is pretty big. What’s it look like to you? Five or six acres?”
Lita said, “Sure, bruh. Easy. Might make it easier to get in there without being seen. Been a couple of days since we got some, dude. I wanna git some!”
Cutter chuckled. “What happened to the little tutorial-bot that couldn’t, huh?”
Lita’s voice was low and intense. “He got some!”
Cutter clung to the back of the speeding bot as they whipped across the last stretch, mounting the slope of the landform and skidding to a stop in the relative cover of the forest of dead trees.
Cutter shivered. “This place is freaky enough, eh buddy?”
Lita reformed into his normal configuration, tomahawks at the end of each arm. He spoke quietly, but excitement bubbled from underneath. “Yeah, bruh.”
They moved quietly. Lita’s body produced only the faintest hum when travelling slowly, and lacking footfalls, was probably more silent than Cutter’s movement.
Cutter said, “I bet they’re up the slope.”
Lita said, “Dude, it’s like, pretty biiiig. They could be anywhere, how do you know they’ll be up there?”
Cutter stepped over a desiccated fallen log, its form twisted like a ringed cloth. “They sound like wannabes. I know the type. They’ll have found some creepy little cave or recess to make their club. I’ll bet they’re wusses themselves, too chickenshit to hang out in this scary ass woods for too long.”
Lita shrugged but followed, the little blue eyes narrowed and focused.
They moved through the dead forest easily enough. There was no undergrowth, just rows of dead trees and the debris of others that had broken apart. They were able to move under the cover of the bonelike woods all the way to the base of the rise. There, the slope was rock and fine loose scree.
Cutter looked up. “Buddy, I’m going to have to go pretty slow here. We can’t all hover above the ground and that looks pretty slippery.”
Lita said, “Why don’t you just hover, bruh? Legs make, like, totally no sense.”
Cutter said, “We make do with what God gave us, I guess. I kinda like my legs.”
Lita looked down at the point where his torso tapered to a point. “Whatever, dude, keep telling yourself that.”
The ascent was difficult. Several times the ground shifted, giving way to a cascade of sliding, tumbling stones and dirt. The noise seemed unmissable in the silence, and each time Cutter prepared for an attack, for a spell to be cast at them or an arrow loosed. Each time a response failed to materialize, his confidence grew in the notion that the cultists were ineffective amateurs.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Hey, Leets… where I come from, kids sometimes get caught up in culty shit. They get fascinated by it. Do stupid shit sometimes, rites and rituals. They don’t really mean shit. What are we going to do if they are up there and they’re just a bunch of stupid teens or some shit? I don’t want to kill a bunch of kids.”
Lita said, “Bruh… do kids where you come from murder babies to make their rituals go?”
Cutter was climbing the loose ground carefully, his weapon in his belt so that he could move on all fours. “Uh… well, not too often, I guess. I suppose you have a point there.” He shuddered. “Like, do you really think they’d murder babies?”
“Bruh, I’m just saying what Spinner was saying.”
The slope flattened onto a wide shelf, almost a plateau, jutting from the side of the mountain landform. Loose boulders and scattered dead bushes peppered the ground. Beyond was a huge yawning cavern mouth, and faint voices issued from its recesses.
Cutter chuckled lowly. “Oh man, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of how this place is set up. It’s a scene from Elder Scrolls or something. How convenient that there’s a perfect mountain lair for the emos to do their thing?”
“Bruh… I don’t know what most of those things are…”
They crept forward. The naked bushes and cartoonishly round boulders offered plenty of cover as they moved forward.
Eventually, resting near the opening of the cave, Cutter whispered, “Okay, strat time.”
Lita said, “Dude, strat time would have been a while ago. This is time to… GIT S—”
“Shhhh… not yet. Facts are facts and Spinner had his doubts about this job. There’s six of them wanted and we don’t know that they don’t have other friends as well. We need to have a suss before we—”
He stopped talking as he realized, not ten feet away, crouched the scantily armored woman he had seen outside the bar.
He stared at her. She nodded curtly back, clearly having just been listening to the details of their conversation.
Cutter leaned over, hissing, “Hey! What are you doing here?”
Her voice echoed thinly in the helmet, but still came across as female, deep and husky. “I’m looking for bounty, what the hell else would I be doing?”
Cutter said, “No way! It’s our bounty!”
She said, “It’s first come, first served. Not a contract, a bounty.”
Cutter frowned. “Nuh-uh…”
She folded her arms. “Am I supposed to say uh-huh now? They say you’re pretty good. How’d you live so long being such a perfect child?”
Lita’s head swiveled, tracking each of them as they spoke. Cutter said, “This is my hit. I need it. Bad.”
She shrugged. “It’s tough all over, buddy. But listen, I’m not here for the whole lot. There’s six of them in there and an animal of some kind. I’m a Rogue Class. Stone banded. I’m not about to take all six of them on at once. I’m waiting to pick off one or two, pop their heads off, and high-tail it.”
Cutter paused, raising his chin. “Hmmm… are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
She said, “That the remaining four will eat you for breakfast after I leave?”
Cutter snorted. “Toots, I’ll eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
“Did you just call me toots?”
His voice became very quiet. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that word in my life, actually. Listen, we should do a team-up!”
“A team-up?”
Cutter’s eyes were wide and excited. “Yeah! A team-up! Unlikely allies taking out the bad guys! We could clear the whole den out and split the prizes 70-30.”
“70-30?” she struggled to keep her voice quiet.
Cutter said, “Hear me out, hear me out. You only wanted one or two, but you were going to take the heads. If we clear them out, then you can loot properly with us. But there’s two of us and one of you, so that means we should get the bigger share.”
Lita’s eyes went wide. “Bruh! Am I getting a share this time?”
“Shush you. So what do you think?”
She shook her head. “The construct’s a clay band. But I’ll go 60-40.”
Cutter thought hard for a moment. Then he nodded. “Okay, fair deal. Let’s do it. So, you’re a rogue, what’s your strat?”
She reached behind her and produced a short recurve bow. “Mostly this.” Then, pointing to her belt where a shortsword and a dirk hung, she said, “But I have these when I have to.”
Cutter’s eyes widened. “You’re pretty well equipped!”
“I’m fairly average on gear. You, on the other hand, are geared up like a hobo.”
Cutter said, “I’m working on that.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her sword.
“Listen, I have an idea. Hear me out though, let me finish. Give me your sword.”
She waited, then said, “Oh! You’re done. Um… no.”
Cutter said, “Look at this, I’m a cinder sword sigil. I’d kick so much more ass with a sword. Just for the fight. Let me see what a sword is like.”
“You’ve never used a sword? But you’ve got that sigil…”
Cutter said, “It’s a long story. Whaddya think?”
“No.”
Cutter’s face melted in dismay. “It’s just for the fight.”
She said, “If I give you my sword, then all I’ll have to defend myself with if one of them gets close to me is my dirk.”
Cutter said, “Yeah, but if you give me the sword, none of them will live long enough to get close to you.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
Cutter grinned savagely. “Come on! They don’t call me misser! They call me Cutter, cause I cut! It’s called leveraging your assets, babe. I’m an asset, but I’d be a much better asset if I had a sword. Your survivability goes way up if I’ve got it.”
She held up fingers one at a time. “First, if you keep talking like that, then I’m leaving and you can fight them on your own—”
“That’s what I wanted in the first place.”
“Second, you’ve never used a sword, so you’d have to learn as you fight—”
“How I’ve learned everything I know so far…”
“Third, how do I know I’ll get it back?”
Cutter said, “Well, you’re tight with Spinner, aren’t you? Yeah? Me too. If I steal your sword, I won’t get any more contracts from him. And you’re a rogue, so you could probably just track me down and cut my throat while I sleep to get it back. Besides, I’d never do a thing to a lady like you.”
“I warned you about that.”
“Okay, okay. Just give me the sword. I promise you won’t regret it.”
Sighing, she drew the blade and handed it to him. “I’m going to regret this.”
“I swear, you won’t. Oh boy, this is sharp! Okay, strat time and then we…”
Lita whispered intently, “Git some…”
